"What does Hongjun mean by staring at me like this? Could he have seen through my identity as a Transmigrator? But that shouldn't be. My Origins and background in the Great Wilderness are crystal clear. No matter how thoroughly Hongjun deduces heavenly secrets, he can't conjure up anything out of thin air!"

"Besides, unlike those protagonists in Great Wilderness novels, I never made any foolish oath like 'From now on, so-and-so exists no more, there is only Ancestor Hongyun of the Great Wilderness'—which is practically protesting too much and revealing one's secrets. So why is Hongjun staring at me now? What on earth is he up to..."

Feeling somewhat uneasy, Hongyun inevitably grew restless.

Before this, Hongyun had not felt much psychological pressure when facing Hongjun.

Even regarding the Saint Position prayer mat, Hongyun did not think Hongjun would scheme against him just because he had actually sat on it.

To put it plainly, since Hongjun intended to preach and spread the Dao throughout the Great Wilderness, he had to treat everyone equally on the surface and show no favoritism.

Thus, with the prayer mats placed there, naturally someone had to sit on them. Hongjun couldn't allow others to sit while singling out Hongyun to forbid him; that would make no sense.

Moreover, Hongyun was also one of all living beings in the world, an Innate God and Demon nurtured by the Heavenly Dao, naturally divine and blessed with extraordinary Qi Fortune. Hongjun gathered the Qi Fortune of all living beings to conform to the Heavenly Dao, which naturally included Hongyun, who had contributed a share of his Qi Fortune to him.

Furthermore, there was no past enmity or recent grudge between the two, and there was even this good affinity connecting them. So even if Hongjun were truly a sinister schemer and the Great Wilderness's greatest villain as depicted in various novels, he still wouldn't specifically target Hongyun alone like this.

After all, no matter what Hongyun was like, could he be more worthy of scheming against than Pangu's Three Pure Ones? Could he be more worthy of plotting against than Jieyin and Zhunti, who had immense Karma entangled with Hongjun and carried the Karma and Qi Fortune of the West's prosperity?

It made no sense!

As for the rumors in various novels claiming that Hongyun was The Escaped One and thus Hongjun paid special attention to him, that was even sheer nonsense.

Pangu opened the heavens without attaining Perfection. Thus, of the fifty Great Daos, the heavens evolve forty-nine, and the one that escaped gave birth to infinite variations, granting a glimmer of hope to all living beings of the world—which signifies that heaven and earth are not in Perfection!

Therefore, the so-called Escaped One was nothing more than the entirety of living beings' evolution between heaven and earth.

Hongjun's merging with the Dao might have many reasons, but in essence, it was merely using his body to mend and diminish this "One," making Karma and destiny more stable and orderly, strengthening the binding power of the Heavenly Dao, and preventing uncontrollable variables and turmoil from arising in the Great Wilderness.

Whether Hongjun could do it well, or whether he even wanted to do it well, was an entirely different matter and beyond comment.

Thus, unless the Great Wilderness achieved complete Perfection, the Primordial Heavenly Dao evolved into the Eternal Great Dao, and heaven and earth became Eternal and imperishable through Immeasurable Calamities, only then might this Escaped One appear in the Great Wilderness in various forms.

As for now, The Escaped One could not possibly appear!

"So what is this Old fellow Hongjun thinking, staring at me all this time? Don't tell me he's an obstinate canon purist just like Yuanshi, pondering how to scheme against me according to the original script?" With an uneasy mind, Hongyun's thoughts wandered all over, and all kinds of bizarre ideas surfaced in his head.

Fortunately, at this moment, Hongjun also realized that staring at Hongyun like this was indeed somewhat inappropriate.

Thus, he swiftly withdrew his gaze and spoke indifferently, "I shall preach three times, each lasting three Yuanhui. Henceforth, seating shall remain according to this order and may not be altered."

As his voice fell, before anyone could react, Hongjun began preaching.

"Before heaven and earth opened, there was something formlessly fashioned, born before heaven and earth. Silent and void, standing alone and unchanging, revolving ceaselessly without peril, it may be regarded as the Mother of all under heaven. I know not its name; I style it the Dao. If forced to give it a name, I call it Great. Great means passing on; passing on means going far; going far means returning. Therefore, the Dao is great, heaven is great, earth is great, and living beings are also great..."

...

The Dao Ancestor sat high upon the sermon platform. The Dao voice of a Saint rang forth, the Great Dao natural yet accompanied by falling celestial blossoms and golden lotuses springing from the ground, as all manner of wondrous heavenly and earthly anomalies manifested.

These heavenly and earthly anomalies were entirely condensed and manifested by the Laws of heaven and earth, ceaselessly gathering boundless Innate Spiritual Qi into various forms. Influenced by their own respective conditions, varying amounts of it entered the bodies and Primordial Spirits of the Three Thousand Guests of Zixiao Palace, allowing them to rapidly absorb and comprehend it.

Among them, the six people on the prayer mats naturally gained the greatest benefits, with Hongyun and Laozi benefiting the most, followed in turn by Yuanshi, Tongtian, and Nuwa, while Jieyin gained the least among the six.

In any case, except for the Wu Clan who could not understand due to their own nature and began dozing off, everyone else, blessed by the Dao Ancestor's sermon, entered a state of enlightenment where self and world were forgotten. They immersed themselves in the vast ocean of the Great Dao of heaven and earth, absorbing moisture untiringly like sponges.

Under these circumstances, some would from time to time instinctively weep or laugh, beat their chests and stomp their feet, dance about joyfully, or sigh heavily and weep in silence.

These were all personal manifestations of their Dao comprehension; however, if one caused too great a commotion, it indicated insufficient fated opportunity and Qi Fortune, causing their body to drift further back, thereby receiving less fated opportunity and Qi Fortune.

However, this had nothing to do with those settled upon the prayer mats. Among them, Hongyun wore a serene expression as an auspicious cloud gradually emerged above his head, the Great Luo Three Flowers faintly appearing, and his Primordial Spirit floating within it, spewing forth indistinct Innate Dao Patterns of Chaos that continually evolved.

It faintly transformed into an exceedingly profound scripture, occasionally accompanied by the soft chanting of an extraordinarily wondrous text.

"The formlessness of clouds is an Eternal and imperishable state. The formless can transform into all things, giving rise to all phenomena of heaven and earth. All phenomena and things of heaven and earth possess heavenly might and should likewise be imperishable; only through imperishability can one reach the realm of Primordial Limitless..."

"The Dao of clouds encompasses all phenomena; the self is all phenomena and things of heaven and earth, and all phenomena and things of heaven and earth are likewise the Dao of clouds. Life, death, illusion, and destruction are all integrated into the self, reaching the realm of Primordial Limitless..."

...

The recitation of the scripture continued incessantly, and the scroll of scripture grew increasingly complete.

Yet this scroll was not the cultivation method from Hongyun's Innate Inheritance, the Huoyun Scripture, but the cultivation method that Hongyun had gradually deduced on his own over endless ages: the Wuji Yunmiao Scripture.

This was not because the Huoyun Scripture was flawed, but because the path of this cultivation method followed the Dao of floating clouds' carefree freedom—namely: body and mind are like floating clouds between heaven and earth, drifting with the wind, free and unrestrained, with space and time alike as drifting clouds, wandering freely through heaven and earth, seeking to attain ultimate freedom through one's own carefree nature!

Such a path of cultivation was lofty and truly formidable. It might have suited Ancestor Hongyun, the good-natured fellow of the original trajectory, but it was absolutely unsuitable for the present Hongyun.

For Hongyun knew the developmental trajectory of the Great Wilderness and understood that in this Great Wilderness fraught with countless tribulations, such a carefree Dao was far too superficial and overly idealized.

Without proper discretion, it would attract all sorts of Karma, courting one's own death and turning into a path to destruction.

The unlucky and tragic Ancestor Hongyun of the original Great Wilderness trajectory was a prime example. The power of benevolence contained within Pangu's heart blood had already created significant hidden dangers in his character flaws.

Furthermore, cultivating this Huoyun Scripture only made it possible for the hidden dangers of those character flaws to be magnified infinitely.

Thus, though Ancestor Hongyun appeared to roam freely across heaven and earth, making friends throughout the Great Wilderness, he also became tainted with vast Karma and depleted his own Qi Fortune without realizing it.

At the same time, he inevitably earned the reputation in others' minds of an easygoing, honest fool ripe for exploitation, with Zhen Yuanzi being the only one who befriended him sincerely.

That was why in Purple Heaven Palace, the two from the West deemed Ancestor Hongyun an easy target and plotted for the Saint Position. The Karma accumulated within Ancestor Hongyun then erupted completely; his Dao Heart was thrown into disorder and clouded, leading him foolishly to surrender the Saint Position and contract boundless Karma.

As for Kunpeng, he only dared vent his boundless resentment over losing the Saint Position on an easy mark like Ancestor Hongyun, to the point where even Minghe—long known as the tycoon of the Great Wilderness, the trend-follower, the Avatar master, and the ultimate shut-in of the Great Wilderness—dared to jump out in the end and take a kick at this honest man!

In short, when Ancestor Hongyun finally fell into calamity, that so-called carefree freedom became a complete joke!

Even worse, because in the end only Zhen Yuanzi was willing to step forward and fight for Ancestor Hongyun while everyone else turned a deaf ear and remained indifferent, his so-called 'friends across the Great Wilderness' became a colossal irony filled with endless desolation.

Therefore, with this lesson from the past, Hongyun held only one conviction regarding this Huoyun Scripture: "Dignity exists only on the edge of the blade, and truth lies only within the range of cannons—a maxim equally applicable to the Great Wilderness."

"There is nothing wrong with cultivators pursuing carefree freedom, but in the Great Wilderness, if one lacks overwhelming strength yet treats the pursuit of freedom as one's specific path and method of cultivation, that is sheer absurdity. In this Great Wilderness, such so-called freedom can ultimately be nothing more than an illusion. I will never tread the old path of Ancestor Hongyun."

Holding such convictions and attitude, Hongyun naturally did not truly cultivate this Huoyun Scripture or walk the so-called carefree path of floating clouds. Instead, ever since acquiring a certain cultivation, he had spent endless ages deducing and cultivating the Wuji Yunmiao Scripture.

He sought through this method to cultivate a Great Dao of clouds where clouds transform into all things of heaven and earth, all things become floating clouds, and everything is the self and abides within the self—immortal, imperishable, and attaining Primordial Limitless.

However, deducing Dao methods was extraordinarily difficult, so Hongyun had never been able to completely perfect the Wuji Yunmiao Scripture.

This First Lecture at Zixiao Palace, though all-encompassing in scope, primarily expounded the path of cultivation for Sentient beings of the Primordial World all the way to the Great Luo Golden Immortal Perfection realm. This was a perfect match for Hongyun's deduction of the Wuji Yunmiao Scripture, yielding immense gains for him.

After this lecture, barring any surprises, thoroughly perfecting the Wuji Yunmiao Scripture should not be difficult, which would settle a major matter for Hongyun.

And so the years passed, time flying by. During this period, Hongjun paused briefly, gazing across endless space to cast a glance at a peculiar monkey somewhere in the Primordial Land. With cold ruthlessness, he uttered, "The Law is not passed to Six Ears," before resuming his sermon.

To the Three Thousand Guests of Zixiao Palace, this matter was insignificant and virtually went unnoticed. They remained immersed in the three thousand Dao methods expounded by the Saint. In the blink of an eye, the three Yuanhui of preaching were drawing to a close, and the cultivation of each of the Three Thousand Guests of Zixiao Palace had increased tremendously.

Led by Nuwa and Jieyin, several Great Divine Beings achieved a breakthrough to the Late-stage Daluo Golden Immortal realm during this First Lecture at Zixiao Palace.

Once they thoroughly digested the contents of this lecture in the future, many more Late-stage Daluo Golden Immortal Great Divine Beings would likely emerge, and some might even make an attempt on the Great Luo Golden Immortal Perfection realm.

One could say that this First Lecture at Zixiao Palace significantly closed the gap between the others and Hongyun and Pangu's Three Pure Ones, carrying the subtle implication of forcibly diminishing the advantages held by Hongyun and his peers.

Nevertheless, Hongyun and Pangu's Three Pure Ones remained the ones who reaped the greatest harvest.

Though they did not break through, listening to this sermon had saved them hundreds of millions of years of painstaking cultivation. Once they returned and digested what they had learned, they would essentially be able to break through to Great Luo Golden Immortal Perfection.

Furthermore, Hongyun's Wuji Yunmiao Scripture was now thoroughly perfected. A wondrous cloud light symbolizing the Perfection of his Dao method appeared above his head—a swirling, chaotic mass of surging clouds that evolved and transformed into all phenomena and things of heaven and earth, cycling through life, death, illusion, and annihilation before ultimately returning to Chaos and Wuji in an endless cycle. It radiated boundless, dazzling brilliance.

This was the Wuji Yunmiao Immortal Light, a Divine Ability akin to the Taiqing Immortal Light, Jade Purity Immortal Light, and Shangqing Immortal Light, and the defining symbol of Hongyun's Daoist tradition and Inheritance in the future.

"The First Lecture at Zixiao Palace has ended. The next lecture will presumably cover the Dao of Quasi-Saints." Gradually, Hongjun's Dao voice ceased. Hongyun woke with a slight twinge of discomfort from the sudden cessation of the Saint's Dao voice, knowing that this lecture had completely concluded.

At this moment, as Hongjun stopped preaching and the Saint's Dao voice abruptly cut off, the Three Thousand Guests of Zixiao Palace snapped awake in immense discomfort. Some unconsciously wept bitterly, while others instinctively glared angrily at Hongjun—a true display of the myriad states of existence.

Hongjun paid no mind to this, merely stating indifferently, "This lecture has concluded. Depart now. Three hundred Yuanhui hence, the Second Lecture at Zixiao Palace shall begin, and you may return to hear the Dao. Until then, Purple Heaven Palace shall remain closed; do not seek it."

As his words fell, Hongjun's figure had already vanished without a trace.

"Respectfully seeing off the Dao Ancestor."

After cupping his hands and bowing toward the sermon platform alongside the crowd to see him off, Hongyun suddenly suspended the chaos primordial qi bead above his head, gripped the Hongmeng Heaven-Measuring Ruler in hand, and was the first to exit Purple Heaven Palace.

He then stood in the Chaotic Void far outside the gates of Purple Heaven Palace, his gaze turning deeply cold as an undisguised killing intent emanated from his entire body.